In 2017, the RTÉ Young Sports person of the Year was awarded to a swimmer from Co Sligo, Mona McSharry.
The then 17-year-old claimed gold at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Indianapolis. Darragh Maloney travelled to Copenhagen, from where she was competing at the time, to present her with the award.
And while McSharry no doubt cherished that recognition at the time, her sights were set on even bigger things in the pool.
The Marlins Swim Club in Ballyshannon, where her talent was nurtured will now be toasting McSharry's success in claiming bronze at the Paris Olympics, in what was another high-octane night of joy, exhilaration and much emotion at the La Defence Arena.
It was in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, under the tutelage of Grace Meade, that the up-and-coming prospect started to realise her potential – a rising graph that saw junior success at European and World level.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport in 2021, on the eve of McSharry's appearance in the Tokyo final, Meade, who started coaching the Grange native at the age of ten, said the target was Paris three years on.
Meet Mona McSharry - Ireland's bronze medal swimmer
"She's done great through the juniors. We knew this was coming but we had a plan that 2024 would be our Olympics. I spoke to her this morning and said there's nothing like doing it three years early."
McSharry finished eight in the Japanese capital, a commendable effort against high-quality opposition; she seemed content. And was ready to resume her college career in the University of Tennessee.
But successful athletes don't always want that sense of contentment. At the 2022 Europeans, McSharry finished fifth in the 100m breaststroke final. She felt she didn't reach her potential, expectations not met. She wasn't happy.
Maybe it was the start of something.
The afterglow of Tokyo a year previously, that ahead-of-schedule high-point, now meant nothing.
"Goodness, I could go on forever with this," was McSharry's initial response when asked by RTÉ Sport to relive a dark mist that descended on her.
"It just came to a head some Sunday in the middle of summer. I remember waking up and I was really upset, crying, I didn't know why I was crying. I was really unhappy. I called my friends from home, I was talking to them anyway, we talked through it and they helped me realise what was going on and I didn’t realise it stemmed from swimming."
She sought help, not professionally but from family and friends, and she came out the other side.
Reaction from the McSharry clan
A few months later, she secured her ticket to Paris. McSharry, one of those athletes, who likes to get qualification done early, tapering down nicely to major events. This year's World Championships saw her again miss out on a podium finish. Perhaps not uttered loudly, but there was the feeling that the 23-year-old would just always fall short in bringing home a medal at the highest level.
And then she arrived in the French capital. The way she swam in the heats and semi-finals gave us some indication that she could be in the medal mix, though not good enough to win gold. Could she take it home in that last 50?
In the final, she had to do that. The top six were separated by just .57 of a second; McSharry edging her Italian rival by .01 of a second for the bronze.
That's how tight it was.
After the presentation, Sligo's first Olympic medallist took the applause from her family and friends in the crowd. The 'Go Mona' t-shirts aplenty, before she went to her fellow athletes in the stand, where Danielle Hill still had her cap on after swimming in the100m backstroke semi-final.
No doubt there will be a huge homecoming party in Grange, a village by the sea, and Mona would like to eventually live near the coast.
Then there's another semester to do in Tennessee. Whether this will be McSharry's last major event, time will tell.
For now, she's answering questions from the world press; questions for an Olympic medallist, who was determined to get that medal, to bring it home when the margins were so tight
"I was like, 'I'm not giving up, I’m going, I’m going’. I think there was 0.1 between me and the next two swimmers, so that’s kind of crazy. But that’s what racing’s about, close finishes," she said to the assembled hall.
Job done.
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